Theologians and scholars of the Hebrew Bible have long argued about the historicity of the Exodus, the authorship of the Torah, theodicy, and much else. But all agree that long ago, a small group of people appeared in history to declare that they had been chosen to play an extraordinary role in the world. Because of that declaration, the nations of the world would pay special attention this chosen people. The nations of the world would love them, and the nations of the world would despise them. By blessing the descendants of ancient Israel the nations of the world would be blessed. By cursing the descendants of ancient Israel, the nations of the world would be cursed. Israel—ancient and modern—has always been a small nation, but it has always been at the moral and political center of human affairs.
Am Yisrael Chai—the Jewish people lives—is a fact, but what is the theological meaning of this most improbable miracle? Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of Shearith Israel and Yeshiva University’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought examines how Jewish history itself illustrates God’s enduring providence.
Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik
Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik is one of the world’s preeminent Jewish thinkers and educators, and he’s one of America’s most influential religious leaders. He is the senior rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. He is also director of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. Rabbi Soloveichik has lectured internationally to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences on topics relating to faith in America, the Hebraic roots of the American founding, Jewish theology, bioethics, wartime ethics, Jewish-Christian relations, and more. He writes a monthly column in Commentary magazine, and his writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Mosaic, First Things, Azure, Tradition, Jewish Review of Books, and many other outlets. Rabbi Soloveichik is a descendant of one of the Jewish world’s great rabbinic dynasties. He graduated summa cum laude from Yeshiva University, received his rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and studied at its Beren Kollel Elyon. He has also studied at Yale Divinity School, and in 2010 received his doctorate in religion from Princeton University.